Blood Mate (7 page)

How could she
trust him? How could she give herself to a monster in the most
irreversible way? What he’d shown her so far had been imprisonment
and desperation. Locking herself into eternity with that wasn’t an
option.

She edged closer
to August and knelt beside him, pulling his hands from his face. He
looked up, so broken that a small part of her wished she could do
what he needed, that things were somehow different. That her life was
different. That her heart was different.

“Please,” she
said. “I’m sorry for what’s been done to you, truly I am. I
believe you when you say you were a good man before the curse. But
what you’re asking… I can’t give it to you. I love Dominic
so
much. I just want him back. Please, I beg you, let me go.
Won’t you feel remorse for the things you do to me? Am I not of the
same value as those you kill each night? Does this crime against me
not matter?”

She tried not to
pull away when his hand brushed her cheek.

“You’re of far
greater value. But I know at the core of my being that you’re the
only train coming. I can’t bear the thought of an eternity like
this with no hope of the reprieve of death to make it stop. I will do
whatever is necessary to have you. Please don’t make me pile more
brutality onto my history. Please, Nicolette.”

Nicole wiped the
tears from his face. “I can’t. What will make eternity of being a
blood sacrifice stop for me? How can you ask or expect or think that
I could or would… ”

“Stop,”
he said. “Just stop.”

A
long moment passed between them, then something lit his face. A new
idea?

“I
will make a bargain. I’ll undo the thrall on your husband and let
you return to him, if you consent to becoming my mate. I will come
to you and feed from you each night, but you can have Dominic back
for the foreseeable future.”

Nicole
searched his eyes for the lie, but she couldn’t find it. She looked
down at the diamond bracelet the vampire had allowed her to keep even
though he knew what it meant to her. He could have taken it away, but
he hadn’t. Did it mean she could trust him?

She could have
Dominic back. He could love her again.

“I-I want to be
with him until he dies,” she blurted, still transfixed by the
sparkling diamonds at her wrist. “A-and… he will die of natural
causes, not by anything you do, or I will find a way to make you
pay.”

August sighed.
“Fine.”

The man from the
other cage had been unconscious since August pulled him off her.
She’d thought he was dead, but he stirred and groaned.

“Come here,”
August said.

Obediently the man
rose and went to the vampire.

“Look into my
eyes.”

He got that glazed
zombie look about him again. Nicole was grateful that could never
happen to her—one of the few things that couldn’t.

“You will leave
this place and return home. You will not remember anything that
happened here or me.”

The man nodded and
left them in the cellar. August released the other prisoners and
erased their memories as well.

Once they were
alone, Nicole began to tremble. Could she still back out? Had she
already written that check, or did her consent have to come when he
bit her? She didn’t know how this worked. Why couldn’t he take
it? Was there something that blocked the bond from completing unless
she was willing?

She thought of
Dominic, of being back in his arms, back in their bed. Of the past
several months being a bad dream. It would finally be true, rewinding
things, stepping back into the right universe where her husband loved
her again. She would pay any price for that, to feel his strong arms
wrapped around her. To hear his teasing jokes. To bask in the way he
looked at her as if she were something made of magic.

“Come with me.”

She followed the
vampire upstairs. She was finally able to see his house—or maybe
castle. The timeless elegance of it. The obvious money that stood
behind it. Not that things like that mattered to her. She was
comfortable with Dominic. Very comfortable. Past a certain point,
more money was frivolity. Still, there was something ancient and
awe-inspiring about August’s home. It was something that said time
would pass away, and he would still be there in the shadows. And now
so would she.

“How do you have
all this?” she asked.

“How could I
not? Centuries. Compound interest. Only a fool could live so long on
this earth in perfect physical health and be poor. I’m not
suggesting it happened overnight or that I didn’t have many false
starts, but I wasn’t going to have the curse
and
live in
poverty. Determination and wise investments have paid off. It helps
when I can use mind control to learn company secrets and know which
stocks to buy.”

As tormented as he
may be, he’d still had the presence of mind to accumulate a
ludicrous living standard. So how bad could his suffering be?
Couldn’t he simply bear it and free her to go back to her life
without strings?

He led her to a
parlor and indicated a chaise lounge. “Sit.”

She couldn’t
stop the tremor in her hands, in her body. An icy coldness seeped
through her veins, cracking and hissing in her ears as it spread
through her, as if it were turning her into a solid block of ice.

He sat beside her,
his hand resting on her knee. “I’m sorry you’re so terrified. I
wish I could make this easier. Or make it not hurt. You don’t have
to do anything except remain in a receptive state. Accept my bite.
Don’t struggle or fight me. After I’ve mixed our blood, it will
be done.”

She looked away,
seeking some form of privacy for her misery.

“You must love
him very much to make this sacrifice. I envy him that. Some day you
will come to care for me. It will all be okay, I promise.”

She wasn’t going
to contradict him. If she’d be trapped with him forever, it was
better not to make waves. And she didn’t want to do anything to
make him go back on his word. No matter how sincere his pledge might
be, once this was complete, there was nothing that would force him to
uphold his bargain except the innate goodness he professed to still
have. But it was the one remote chance she had of seeing Dominic
again.

Nicole started to
cry when his fangs elongated.

“Be brave. It
won’t take long. You’ll become used to it over time.”

She
squeezed her eyes shut as fangs embedded in her throat. She shuddered
against the sharp, stinging pain that burned, not just her veins, but
her soul. She sobbed as he drank from her, the pain tunneling deeper
and deeper until it seemed to claw her skin apart from the inside.
She couldn’t take this every night. It was beyond what she was
capable of enduring, of what anyone could endure.

Hysteria began to
build inside her. She was moments from struggling, shouting
no!
,
doing anything to stop the completion of the ritual, when Dominic’s
face floated into her mind. She’d sacrifice anything for a few more
decades with him. Anything. She tried not to think of how she would
feel when her husband was finally dead and buried, and her
enslavement to August was just beginning. This was a devil’s
bargain. She knew that. And yet, Dominic had been her weakness from
the first sunny afternoon when he’d offered her that crooked smile
outside the library.

The guilt of
betrayal mixed with the burning agony of the vampire’s fangs until
they felt like the same thing. Finally, August pulled away from her
throat. She turned to see him bite his tongue, then he licked the
wound on her neck, sealing their blood together.

Something unwanted
fluttered in her stomach when his tongue stroked over her neck, the
glimmer of something she shouldn’t feel. It had to be the bond
somehow controlling her. Had she just given him power over her mind?
The one thing he hadn’t had before?

Panic curled
inside her at the idea that she’d been free of his hypnotic
control, and now that she’d accepted his bite, some sorcery beyond
her might make her want him.

“Are you all
right?” he asked.

She felt the bond
rise from forgotten spaces in the void, wrapping around them,
creating a link that could never be severed. Deep down she’d feared
that once he got what he wanted he would turn more cruel, but his
touch on her face was gentle, his hazel gaze filled with warmth and
concern… and gratitude.

How long would
that
last?

“I-I feel weak,”
she said, unsure if she could stand, doubting it possible that she
could do this every night and survive to tell the tale.

“The changes may
take a while to complete.”

Nicole reached to
the side of her neck, expecting to feel a wound, but there was
nothing. As if it had never happened at all. Not even a scar, just a
slight burn under her skin that she worried would never go away.
Despite no visible evidence, the rest of her body screamed at her
like she’d been hit by a truck.

“Changes?” She
didn’t like the sound of that. Her breath came in short, shaky
waves, and she couldn’t get enough air no matter how much she
gasped for it.

He steadied her
with a hand on her arm. “Easy, Nicolette. The changes that make you
immortal, that make your blood replenish quickly, that speed your
healing time. The changes that make you a god. Believe me, they are
nothing to fear, especially without the curse attached.”

The realization of
what she’d done crept into her, the memories of the cellar and the
death promising to be a constant feature in all future nightmares.
She tried not to think about what it said about her that she had been
so quick to say yes when Dominic had been dangled in front of her
like a carrot, and yet she’d let no less than sixty people be
murdered right in front of her and still had refused the vampire’s
demand each night—until he’d found the thing that mattered to her
enough to sacrifice anything.

She collapsed on
the floor, shaking as the sobs bubbled up from somewhere deep inside
her.

“Oh, God. What
have I done? All those people you killed… What have I tied myself
to?”

“I can take it
away with the bond.”

“Take what
away?”

“The pain you’ve
suffered. You don’t have to feel this or be destroyed by it.”

She glared up at
him. “You mean mess with my mind so I don’t remember it, so you
can get away with it and it’s all okay?”

“That’s not
what I mean. I can’t erase your memories. But I can take the sting
out of them. You’ll know what happened. It won’t affect your free
will or your memories, just the pain.” He bit into his wrist and
held it out to her.

She made a face
and scrambled away. “No.”

“It won’t hurt
you, it won’t make you a vampire. All it will do is activate the
bond to heal the pain you’re feeling. You can still hate me if you
want.”

Nicole hesitated.
If she ever wanted to find a way to escape him, she would need to be
mentally and emotionally whole. Her best chance of getting away was
being offered to her now. “Okay.”

August relaxed.
“Okay. Good.”

She closed her
eyes and took the offered blood, trying not to think too deeply about
what it was she was ingesting. The memories became images with no
emotion attached—like a long-forgotten recollection of a movie. And
then the pain and guilt were just… gone.

“I need you to
eat a real meal. No more picking over your food. You’ve made your
decision now; extra suffering won’t serve any purpose.”

She followed him
into kitchen and sat at the bar while he took some food from the
fridge. She hadn’t thought much about it before. The food she’d
been served in the cellar hadn’t been bad, but it was the kind of
thing that was hard to notice while in such a frightening situation.
The feeling of dread had edged out any possible enjoyment from food.

She’d never
wondered where her meals came from, but it was clear from his, large
and well-used kitchen that he’d made them. He’d cooked for all of
them every day. Nicole wasn’t sure if it was creepy or kind. She
watched as he arranged leftover steak and some vegetables on a plate
and popped them into the microwave. While it was heating, he poured
her a glass of water.

Nicole sat quietly
for a couple of minutes trying to pick her words. She didn’t want
to risk angering him and was afraid he’d go back on his word now
that he had her, but she had to know.

“A-August?”

He placed the
plate of food in front of her. “Yes?”

“When can I go
back home?”

The muscle in his
jaw twitched, and she held her breath, her eyes pleading with him to
not change his mind now. He could. No matter how sincere he’d been
when he’d begged her for this, now that he had her, he could
withhold Dominic. He could punish her for reducing him to begging
tears, for dragging this out so long, for not following his plan to
the letter.

The reality of the
power he held to take more and more from her was only now sinking in.
She couldn’t even kill herself to escape him. She could only run
and run and run. Run until she ran out of earth and fell off the
edge. Because surely if you ran that much, gravity would give up the
ghost and there would be nowhere left on the earth to go, and then
you would just fall. Forever.

August was
oblivious to the path her thoughts had turned down. After a moment,
the tension in his jaw released, and he sighed. “In the morning.
I’ll go with you and take the thrall off your husband. We’ll need
to do damage control with the flower shop and your friends. How often
do you speak with your family?”

“My parents live
in town, but we don’t speak often. Still, they might know I’m
missing.”

“And your
husband’s family?”

“There’s only
his dad left, but they don’t speak and haven’t in years.”